To Be Read At Dusk

by Charles Dickens

And Naples
reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card-
party on the Chiaja - as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a
Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that
evening - I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table,
white through her rouge, and cries, "My sister in Spain is dead! I
felt her cold touch on my back!" - and when that sister IS dead at
the moment - what do you call that?'

'Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the
clergy - as all the world knows that it does regularly once a-year,
in my native city,' said the Neapolitan courier after a pause, with
a comical look, 'what do you call that?'

'THAT!' cried the German. 'Well, I think I know a name for that.'

'Miracle?' said the Neapolitan, with the same sly face.

The German merely smoked and laughed; and they all smoked and
laughed.

'Bah!' said the German, presently. 'I speak of things that really
do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a
professed one, and have my money's worth. Very strange things do
happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story
of the English bride. There's no ghost in that, but something full
as strange. Will any man tell me what?'

As there was a silence among them, I glanced around. He whom I
took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar. He presently went
on to speak. He was a Genoese, as I judged.

'The story of the English bride?' said he. 'Basta! one ought not
to call so slight a thing a story. Well, it's all one. But it's
true. Observe me well, gentlemen, it's true. That which glitters
is not always gold; but what I am going to tell, is true.'

He repeated this more than once.

Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at
Long's Hotel, in Bond Street, London, who was about to travel - it
might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them;
likewise of me. He was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony
that he received was favourable. He engaged me by the six months,
and my entertainment was generous.

He was young, handsome, very happy. He was enamoured of a fair
young English lady, with a sufficient fortune, and they were going
to be married. It was the wedding-trip, in short, that we were
going to take. For three months' rest in the hot weather (it was
early summer then) he had hired an old place on the Riviera, at an
easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know
that place? Yes; I told him I knew it well. It was an old palace
with great gardens. It was a little bare, and it was a little dark
and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees; but it was spacious,
ancient, grand, and on the seashore. He said it had been so
described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it.
For its being a little bare of furniture, all such places were.
For its being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the
gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather in
their shade.

'So all goes well, Baptista?' said he.

'Indubitably, signore; very well.'

We had a travelling chariot for our journey, newly built for us,
and in all respects complete. All we had was complete; we wanted
for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was
happy, seeing all so bright, being so well situated, going to my
own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, la bella
Carolina, whose heart was gay with laughter: who was young and
rosy.